hi guys welcome to another episode of ultimate bucket list and on today's show
you're in my city Manchester it's a place I call home this ancient and
industrious sissy is now a modern metropolis and is quickly becoming the
second city of England it's full of everything that you could possibly want
from shops entertainment history Manchester's pretty much got it all but
there's a few things that you need to know before actually coming here due to
the covert 19 outbreak obviously I've not really been anywhere in the last
three months and it's getting kinda boring so what one of my fans suggested
is for me to show you around my city now currently it's 6:30 on a Sunday morning
and everything shuts and there are no people around so when you come to
Manchester bear in mind that it's not usually this quiet but anyway here's
your complete guide to what to do when you come and visit my town I suppose I
should start by telling you what slap-bang in the middle Manchester Town
Hall this grade 1 listed building is actually free of charge to walk in to
simply go in and admire some of the structures some of the artwork and the
history of one of the oldest administrative centres in England and
it's also quite a nice venue albeit a little bit under construction at the
minutes right across the street from nuts is the Manchester Arts Gallery if
art is your thing once again this is a free of charge place to go into behind
the Art Gallery why is the heart of Manchester's Chinese community Chinatown
and yes I feel very much at home here I highly recommend that you stop off at
hose bakery for something to eat in the meantime just explore the Oriental nos
around but you generally won't see in any other part of the city
behind Chinatown why is one of the most infamous trees in Manchester canal
streets home to the city's gay village now you'll know you're in the gay
village because well there's rainbows everywhere and Manchester is the
epicenter of the LGBT community in the country and the Pride Festival is the
largest anywhere in Europe the nightlife is pretty cool
obviously rather gay no seriously that's what is actually called so let's say
that that isn't interesting how about to do some shopping
well you'll only need to go to one place on Dale centre situated in the north of
the city the Arndale Centre is massive and you won't struggle to find shops
that fits the bill for what you're looking for however so guys I always
complained that manchester city centre sometimes is far too busy and I must
have walked the streets a million times in my life but I have never seen it like
this I mean literally it is dead this is actually one of the most bustling
streets in the city so if you do commutes Manchester
it won't let's all be like this across the street from the Arndale Centre
you'll find the Corn Exchange aka the triangle and a giant Selfridges once
again giving you more shopping options and if that's not enough
look opposite the road and you'll find this place the print works
it's an old print works building as you can imagine it's a pretty cool nightlife
spots but during the day also you can find lots of restaurants bars cinemas
etc so a cool place to hang out right next door
you'll find this glass monstrosity the National Football Museum previously
known as the urbis building is now home to our national pastime and the museum
itself is pretty good there's lots of cool exhibits to go into and once again
it's free of charge but honestly the cooler exhibits like the interactive
stuff they actually charge money for that which i think is a little bit of a
ripoff but it's still worth going in
nevertheless in and amongst all the glass houses the shops and the modern
eateries you might walk across this place matches the cathedral yes a lot of
people don't actually know that we have a cathedral slap-bang in the middle of
the city and admittedly most people walk directly past it but if you've got a few
minutes honest to god step inside because you'll find some of the most
interesting church like architecture in the city and it's actually a cool place
to take in a service if you're into that sort of thing but I highly recommend
that even if you're not religious that you will each walk inside and have walk
around as it's free of course so nearby is Manchester Victoria train
station and I highly recommend you go inside seriously it's a train station
admittedly but Manchester Victoria is the oldest of the four train stations
and you can see just what it looks like in Victorian times with the Victorian
architecture the Victorian brickwork in and amongst all this modern stuff
it's a weird eclectic mixture of brickwork and yesteryear but hop on over
the bridge over the train station and you'll come to this the Manchester Arena
the city's concert venue holding over 22,000 people it was unfortunately the
site of a terrorist bombing not too long ago we're quite a lot of people lost
their lives so when you walk around the arena or the train station you'll find
lots of floral tributes and memorials dedicated to the people who had lost
their lives in this tragedy at this point you're probably gonna be asking me
in icing bees everywhere what's with all the bees the bee is the emblem of the
City of Manchester and it's indicative of the hard-working and Industry of
people who helped found this great city so if you see lots of multi-coloured
bees that's basically what it stands for
so if you go north of that you'll end up in the northern quarter now on eyesight
it looks like a bit of a dump and if you walk around and have a look at some of
the buildings you might be thinking why on earth would you recommend that I walk
around here this place is clearly a bit of a ghetto yes it looks like that to
the untrained eye but as soon as you start walking around you'll notice
something different all the shots are just a little bit quirky all the street
signs are just a little bit quirky all the shops bars restaurants eateries
around here are just a little bit quirky and the street art
yep that's quirky to the Northern Quarter is kind of hipster central and
don't be surprised if this is a trendy hangout for thee in alternative people
but I highly recommend that you walk around here anyway especially if you've
got nothing to do and you like to explore quirky things for their happiest
place in Manchester huh interesting place on the east side of the city there
really isn't that much to do the only main thing is Manchester Piccadilly
train station this is now the main train station that services the city and if
you come from any other main city you'll probably stop off here
that's Piccadilly whilst the train station itself has its own shops and
bars I highly recommend not hanging around here too much especially seeing
others much more interesting things to seem to hear in this fine City
Piccadilly Gardens a relatively large green space hidden amongst all this
concrete stuff so if you need a bit of a peace and quiet some greenery or some be
old-style drinker ease Piccadilly Gardens is the way to go anywhere around
Oxford Road station is classed as South Manchester South Manchester is famous
for quite a lot of things one of which is its famous universities the
University of Manchester is probably one of the biggest in Europe and there's a
whole sprawling campus that you can walk around and hang around with students if
you want to it's kind of quartz walk around
especially on a nice day like today and the bars and eateries around there are
relatively cheap you know being students filming this is the GMAC sensor
it used to be Manchester central train station but is now converted into a
convention space currently as you can see from the signs
it's a makeshift NHS hospital for the coronavirus
so that's lil sad across the street from that is that famous Bridgewater Hall
this is my favorite venue for taking in concerts and musical performances
especially this guy Kenny G I love this guy seriously and I've been to see him
here twice and both times has been amazing if you're looking for something
a bit more traditional like the theatre or the Opera the Palace Theatre and
Manchester Opera House come highly recommended and they're just a few
streets away from the Bridgewater Paul if you want to do a bit of celebrity
spotting they usually stay in either one of two hotels this one the Midland Hotel
or the Hilton Hotel which is the tallest building in Manchester around there
you might notice this circular building that matches the Central Library now
it's a library obviously and it's free to go into if you want to admittedly
there's not much in the way of interesting stuff to do but it is free
to go inside you might come across this building which looks like a railway
goods warehouse and it used to be but is now known as the Great Western which is
now a complex of cinemas casinos shops and bars now at this point you're pretty
much crossing over into the west side of the city and specifically to the most
historic area of the city of Manchester Castle field
this is home to the old Roman settlements of the city of Manchester
some call it Mamu qiyam some call it Mancunian whichever it is it's now known
as Castle field and when you walk around Castle field you can actually see
remnants of that's not this place of course this is a piece of blinders bar
what you'll also see in castle field is this the canal actually runs throughout
the length of the city and on a nice day like today it's nice to just walk around
and walk along the canal the reason why it's so important is that this was how
in the industrial revolution age Manchester imported and exported its
goods what's interesting about walking down the canals is that you can actually
see the history plays right through the middle of the city believe it or not the
river oh well runs right through the middle of Manchester and in theory
walking further along the canals is pretty cool you get to see a lot of cool
stuff and in theory if you wanted to you could walk all the way to Liverpool so I
highly recommend they spend a good hour or two walking around Castle field
what's also next to Castle Field is the Museum of Science and Industry again is
free of charge to go into and they basically explain all the history and
what Manchester's famous for from its textile industrial looms to the steam
trains to pretty much anything to do with the city of Manchester
it explains it right here and there's also a fun play area for the kids which
is pretty awesome and yes we also have red telephone boxes around here right
next to that is the area of spinning fields this recent development houses a
lots of office box a lot of eateries and a lot of shops if you walk up the
streets on these gates you'll come across this place the john rylands
library now you'd be forgiven for walking straight past it but this has
been voted one of the most beautiful libraries in the world and when you walk
inside there's the entrance over there you'll see why
from the intricate stone ceilings to the Harry Potter style decorations it's all
very very ornate and it absolutely screams history and I
highly recommend you go in here mainly because it's free
but also because it's actually a cool place to have a wander around and that's
just the middle of the City of Manchester there is a couple of other
things that I highly recommend that you do if you're coming here but they
involve getting a tram and going outside the city limits so the first thing that
I recommend that you do is visit the Trafford Centre the largest shopping
complex in the north of England it has every shop that you could possibly
imagine and across the street a ski slope just
in case you want to go ski also on the west side of Manchester is the most
famous Football Club in all the free world
Manchester United that and Manchester City which is on the opposite side on
the east you'll need a tram to get to and I'm not
going to explore in any great detail because I've made several videos about
it here but suffice to say if you do want to go to the football I highly
recommend that you do if they're on and also watch my videos to make sure you
get the best out of your day at either of these two football clubs I guarantee
you'll have a good time here especially if you decide to come out at night where
the nightlife is pretty damn superb speaking of nightlife if you did want to
go party simply pick up a rock and throw it and you most likely hit a bar a
restaurant or something like that that will entertain you until the wee hours
of the morning it's hard to recommend just one place as it's all good really
what's over all guys Manchester is a wonderful city it's got a lot of things
to see and do and you'll be made welcome by our friendly inhabitants ok Nick I'm
sorted what do I need to do well you need to come here to the City of
Manchester it's served by great transport links for train stations and
an International Airport if you are flying in from the airport's highly
recommend that you cash the Train or one of the trams and that's the easiest way
to get into the middle of Manchester the Train is the quickest 15 minutes the
Tramp will take you about double thoughts and if you are driving I highly
recommend that you avoid driving through the middle of Manchester when you're in
the city centre you don't need to use the tram or the trains
you can literally hop on the free of charge buses that will take you around
the city now you won't need to use the Metrolink the trams in and around the
city because it's quite easy to walk around but I do recommend that you take
advantage of the free buses so you look for a free bus stop which looks like
this and you look on the map and it shows you where it's going simply walk
on and walk off whenever you're ready to get off the bus you don't need to pay
and you don't need to tip the driver it's the easiest way of getting around
the city free of charge if you do need to use the Metrolink ie to go to the
Trafford Centre or any of the football teams I highly recommend that you jump
on at any of the stops go to one of the ticket machines and highlight which
ticket that you need to buy and pay for it on the spot I'll print out a yellow
ticket which you will then use to board the tram and I highly recommend that you
pay for all tickets because they're pretty hot on checking whether or not
you've got a valid tickets the fines are pretty damn steep if you are looking for
a place to stay I highly recommend staying as close to Piccadilly station
as possible in particular the stay city apart hotels
which is literally right on the doorstep of the Manchester Piccadilly station
approach you can literally be from the airport to your hotel in about 20 to 25
minutes if you stay there but if you don't want to stay there there's plenty
of hotels around the city that are reasonably priced the cost to do the
attractions well honestly most of the attractions I talked about in this video
are free the football museum seeing some of the sights and the street arts if you
do want to do something a bit more expensive like watch the football
obviously that's going to cost you a little bit more money but in all honesty
unless you're planning to drink your life savings away Manchester is a
reasonably priced City in the grander scheme of things
is there anything else I need to know yes Manchester is a very walkable city
so you don't need to take taxis etc the whole city centre will probably take you
about 30 to 40 minutes to walk around completely
so finding things isn't too difficult Manchester has a huge problem with
homelessness so during the day they generally don't bother you but at night
and especially first thing here in the morning you'll get quite a few that will
try and hassle you some or even a little aggressive so now that in mind if you do
visit here or if you do venture out at night
speaking of nights Manchester has some great nightlife but I wouldn't make a
habit of lingering on the streets at night it's a relatively safe city but
there have been instances of violent behavior and also Manchester has done a
lot recently to clean up the city and one of those things is imposing strict
bylaws so even something is menial as dropping litter could earn you a hundred
pound fine on the spots so bear that in mind try not to piss behavin if you do
do so at your peril guys I hope you've enjoyed this tour of my city I know it's
not the usual stuff that I usually put out there on YouTube foot if you have
enjoyed this video please be sure to like share and subscribe comments on the
comment section below and if you've got any other bucket list ideas feel free to
tweet them at me forget enough suggestions I'll go ahead and do that so
guys thank you very much for watching and we'll see you in the next episode is
a very vibrant city full of culture nightlife shopping and anything that you
fancy just not right now at half 6:00 on a Sunday morning
Ninh Ly - www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK